Tesco’s giving surplus food to local charities and groups

Laura Sturrock

Tesco is calling on local charities and community groups to register for an exciting new scheme which will see their unsold food become meals for vulnerable people.

As part of its ongoing pledge to cut food waste, Tesco’s Community Food Connection programme with FareShare FoodCloud recruits and supports charities and community groups, linking them to Tesco stores via an innovative app that allows store teams to alert them to surplus unsold food items available at the end of each day.

The unsold food, which is simply surplus to requirements and still within it’s use by and sell by date, is free and includes fresh produce, such as fruit, vegetables and bakery products. Chilled products like meat, dairy and ready meals are also offered.

There have been 350,000 meals donated to people in need via Community Food Connection to date, following a successful pilot in 14 stores last year and a national rollout from March this year, that has seen more than 1,000 charities sign up to the scheme so far.

Milngavie Councillor Eric Gotts said: “ I have always thought that there were much more sensible ways of addressing supermarkets’ surplus food rather than just sending it all to waste.

“Milngavie’s store has already entered into a very successful partnership with the committee of the Fraser Centre which allows that venue to be a food distribution centre every Wednesday.

“This scheme which will help families in need as well as reducing food waste”.

Rachel Finn, head of Community Food Programmes, at Tesco said: “No food that can be eaten should go to waste. “We are looking forward to forging strong links with more local charities and community groups in East Dunbartonshire.”

Any charities or community groups using food to support people that would like to access the scheme, should register by visiting www.fareshare.org.uk/fareshare-foodcloud.